Robots in the field: farms embracing autonomous technology

Faced with seesawing commodity prices and the pressure to be more efficient and environmentally friendly, farmer Jamie Butler is trying out a new worker on his 450-acre farm in England's Hampshire countryside.
Methodically inspecting Butler's winter wheat crop for weeds and pests, the laborer doesn't complain or even break a sweat. That's because it's a four-wheel robot dubbed "Tom" that uses GPS, artificial intelligence and smartphone technology to digitally map the field.

I remember 40 - 45 years ago seeing a documentary on one of those science shows that predicted one day, they would be growing chocolate chip cookies in one big, super super-bowl size indoor farm. A computerized machine would plant 3 rows of wheat, 1 row of sugar cane, 1/2 row of this, 2 rows of that and so on. Computers would provide the exact right amount of water, sun etc. to each plant/ingredient. And come harvest time another big computerized machine would go down the rows, process each ingredient, mix the ingredients in the correct proportions into cookie dough, burn part of the waste (stems and stuff) to fuel the on-board oven, and use the other part of the waste to manufacture the cardboard packaging, including printing with natural vegetable dyes extracted from the plants. Then at the end of row, the machine would spit out cartons of chocolate chip cookies, ready for the market. Pretty cool.

I think the same documentary predicted we would have colonies on the moon by now, but it was still fascinating.

The goal is to use automated driving technology, computer vision, telematics, and cloud-based mobile applications to help farmers double or triple their yields--a feat that will be key to keeping up with global food demands as the Earth's population grows over the next 30 years.IoT and AI take root
The Internet of Things (IoT) is tangible for today's farmers. The machines farmers employ to traverse their fields are stuffed with sensors and software that gather data, process it with machine learning, and beam it into mobile apps. The sensors are the eyes of the machine. The software and mobile apps bring the data to life.

With AI, John Deere envisions a planter that can be made to understand the ground conditions and alter planting settings automatically.Problem solving with AI
An AI system can look across a farmer's operations to analyze data on weather, temperature, moisture, and soil composition, and provide insights on how to optimize equipment, improve planning, minimize waste and increase yields.

By Steve Lohr Jan. 13, 2019
BULGER, Pa. — About 150 Jersey cows in the rolling terrain at Rivendale Farms in Bulger, some 25 miles west of Pittsburgh, wear Fitbit-like collars that monitor their movement, eating and rumination patterns. They are milked not by humans but by robotic machines.
Rivendale Farms outside Pittsburgh is a laboratory for applying technology to smaller farms.

Now, two University of Florida professors say robots and information technology will rule the roost on farms in the coming years.

"I think we will see the first farm trying to put all this technology together in the next few years," Asseng said.
"We have already become accustomed to the idea of autonomous machinery, like tractors navigating their way up and down a field," said Asseng.

"I think the trend is clearly there since agriculture started and more recently, for example, with bigger and bigger tractors in agriculture to have fewer drivers, a trend we also see in other industries," he said. "It definitely opens up new opportunities for other jobs like developing and maintaining robots, drones, software and more."

Engineers from Monash University are developing autonomous drones able to detect moisture hiding just under the surface to help meet our growing demand for food as water sources dwindle.
Walker said the drone is autonomous “in the sense that you mark the paddock you want to fly, it automatically prepares the flight lines...you press the ‘fly’ button, it goes and flies and captures and comes back and lands”.

It’s hoped the increased insights into how water moves through paddocks will allow farmers to optimise crop yields while reducing wastage or overwatering, which can damage the health of plants and lead to increased numbers of pests and diseases.
Autonomous drones also have advantages over satellite imagery or scans conducted by plane or helicopter due to their significantly lower costs and ability to collect more granular data on a regular basis.